Janelle Monáe Just Brought Bisexual Visibility to the Grammys

During the Sunday evening telecast, multiple-Grammy nominee Janelle Monáe brought “Make Me Feel” to the Grammys stage in a futuristic performance that was part Star Wars, part Prince and incorporated the vagina pants from her Grammy-nominated “PYNK” video.

“Make Me Feel” was the lead single from Monáe’s 2018 album Dirty Computer and made a splash upon its debut for featuring heavy use of bisexual lighting — pink and blue lights — as well as showing Monáe flirting with both a female love interest (played by Tessa Thompson) and a male love interest.

During the performance, Monáe, who identifies as pansexual, changed the lyrics to “Make Me Feel” to include “Boy you make me feel” and “Girl you make me feel” an explicit reference to the song being a bisexual anthem.

Monáe incorporated the “vagina pants” or “vulva pants” from her “PYNK” music video during the performance, as well.

At the time the “PYNK” video was released, Monáe was made a very trans-inclusive statement about the costume choice.

"There are some women in the video that do not have on the pants, because I don't believe that all women need to possess a vagina to be a woman,” Monáe said. “I have one, I'm proud of it, but there's a lot of policing and controlling that people are trying to have over our vaginas and when you think about female genital mutilation, when you think about all these women's issues, I wanted to make sure we were discussing these issues but we were also celebrating each other."

Monáe is nominated for album of the year at the Grammys against Brandi Carlile, a lesbian folk singer who has already won 3 Grammys tonight. If Carlile or Monáe win, they will be the first out queer artists to ever win the Grammy’s top honor.